02 — THE NUMBERS AT A GLANCE
1500+
Members
£3.81
CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)
18
Months average length of stay
03 — the SITUATION
Jetts Colchester opened from a standing start. No list, no members, no local awareness—and a competitive gym market where established budget operators already had years of momentum.
We knew that competing on price or filling the gym with short-term January sign-ups would not create the kind of business we wanted. Too many offers and selling cheap to match the compeittors is a race to the bottom. As a result we created an affordable, luxury boutique that doesn't look out of place in London. The ambition was to build something more personal: a welcoming community where members felt recognised, supported and genuinely cared for from their first enquiry onwards.
Acquisition still mattered, but the strategy was shaped around the full member experience. That meant helping people feel comfortable before they arrived, supporting them as they built new habits and noticing when someone began to disengage.
Retention became the outcome of a better experience—not simply a performance metric—so the strategy was built backwards from long-term member success rather than forwards from the initial sign-up.
04 — THE FUN BIT
what
We dId
01
built a full member lifecycle
Enquiry nurture. Free trial sequences. Post-tour follow-up for people who visited and didn't join. New member onboarding. And a trigger-based re-engagement flow that fires when a member hasn't registered a visit in 10 days, or hasn't attended their first class.
That last one is the most valuable automation in the business. The gap between joining and building a habit is where members are lost, and almost nobody intervenes in it.
03
built video series that engage
A weekly education series, running three and a half years without missing a week. Training tips, exercise breakdowns, nutrition, myth-busting. Aimed specifically at the questions people feel too self-conscious to ask out loud, because intimidation is the biggest barrier to someone walking into a gym.
Local competitors have copied the format and abandoned it. Copying the format without understanding the purpose doesn't work.
02
added whatsapp to the stack
Welcome video messages, booking confirmations, follow-ups all personalised to the person interacting with the club.
We don't use WhatsApp for broadcast marketing, only actual conversations.
For a local business, a personalised touch point from a real person at the beats any email template ever written.
04
real people. real results
Short-form video made by the people who actually work there. Members recognise the faces before they arrive, which removes a barrier no amount of paid media would touch.
As a communtiy focused club we love to share our memebr experiences, successes and events. Thats why we love to see that our members get involved in our content.
%20-10.jpg)
04 — the outcome
What Worked
What Was the Hardest
-
Over 1,500 members, with an average membership length of 18 months in a sector where six to nine months is common.
-
Cost per acquisition of £3.81.
-
Email averages a 67% open rate with 4.6% click-through. SMS runs at 40% open rate. The 10-day re-engagement flow wins back 37% of the members it fires at, members who would otherwise have quietly lapsed and cancelled.
-
Conversion runs at 86% for walk-ins and 39% for booked appointments. Content averages 5,000 to 8,000 views per post with around 100 likes and 15 comments, in a town of 120,000 people.
-
Long-form content. Repeatedly. We kept trying it because it felt like it should work, and it consistently underperformed against 30-second video.
-
That's the useful lesson. What works for a trade business on LinkedIn is not what works for a gym on Instagram, and assuming otherwise costs you months.
